“Be kind to your web-footed friend. For a duck may be somebody’s mother.”

This little song should have been written for teachers.

Be kind to your web-footed friends
For a duck may be somebody’s mother,
Be kind to your friends in the swamp 
Where the weather is very, very damp.

I feel like a duck in a swamp right now. It’s cold and damp out here and I’m swimming as fast as I can, trying to herd ducklings while trying to avoid the big net in the hands of random administrators. I’m about to try flying South, duck or no.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uedyba2UWv0 has the Mitch Miller version of this song for anyone who missed this childhood camp favorite.

The teachers I know could all desperately use a little kindness. Here in Illinois, we are sometimes portrayed as lazy, greedy union thugs. In rebuttal, I’d like to observe I often work seventy plus hours per week during the school year. My take-home pay after family insurance is taken out of my paycheck leaves me barely able to afford a nice apartment. We’d be right about at the cut-off line for the federal poverty level for a family of our size without my husband’s income. The union’s another issue, but I have known the union to protect employees who needed protection. It’s a scary world out here in the swamp.